What is the source of class distinction?

[coberst]

What is the source of class distinction?

 

The very first class distinction was between mortal and immortal; between human and superhuman. For the primitives it was often the dead who held power. Primitives were “securely immersed in his particular cultural ideology, which was in essence an ideology of life, of how to continue on and on to triumph over death.” Power was and is the basic category of being for which sapiens have fundamental respect.

 

The primitives recognized a spiritual cosmology wherein power emanated from the “pool of ancestors and spirits”. In the modern world power emanates from technology and money.

 

The infant recognizes the source of power quickly; power becomes the basic category of being. If one does not get this location of power one will have little opportunity to get anything else correct. Without power one quickly declined in vitality leading to death. The primitives were quick to recognize a hierarchy of power. With power the other basic category was ‘danger.

 

Since the eighteenth century the great minds have formed this question, ‘what is the source of inequality?’ and have sought the answer. Rousseau asked why humanity had gradually fallen from a primitive state of innocence into the conflicts of classes and states. Marx capitalized (a pun perhaps?) on Rousseau’s idea to remind us that humanity did not all start out as exploited peons. Today this class and state differential is more abundantly clear.

 

It has been deduced that power and coercion are not the only culprits here, it is that wo/man harbors an “enemy within”; perhaps the “slave is somehow in love with his own chains”.

 

Rousseau offered this answer “The first person who, having fenced off a plot of ground, took it into his head to say ‘this is mine’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.”

 

The salient question became ‘not when’ but ‘why’ it happened?

 

Primitive man recognized differences in talent, strength, and merit and easily deferred to these characteristics. Why—because such characteristics served well the needs of the tribe or community. Certain individuals showed ability for defying death and others wished to share in that immunity.

 

We see here that he “carries within himself the bondage that he needs in order to continue to live…we are born in need of authority and we even create out of freedom, a prison…This insight is the fruit of the outcome of modern psychoanalysis…it penetrates to the heart of the human condition and to the principle dynamic of the emergence of historical inequality…primitive religion starts the first class distinction…That is, the individual gives over the aegis of his own life and death to the spirit worlds; he is already a second-class citizen.”

 

“The first class distinction, then, was between mortal and immortal, between feeble human powers and special superhuman beings.”

 

Quotes from Escape from Evil by Ernest Becker

[Donk]

Coberst implies that the class system started with early man and has developed since. I believe that that is quite wrong. It's quite simply an extension of the "pecking order" found in many other species.

 

It all comes down to evolutionary imperative.

 

As Darwin noted, "The only check to a continued augmentation of fertility in each organism seems to be either the expenditure of more power and the greater risks run by the parents that produce a more numerous progeny, or the contingency of very numerous eggs and young being produced of smaller size, or less vigorous, or subsequently not so well nurtured."

 

There's a trade-off: an animal can have thousands of young at a time with very few reaching maturity, or have less offspring and spend time and effort in nurturing them. The investment in young can be simply feeding and protecting them until they are of an age to do it for themselves, or it can involve making a safe place for them to grow (nest or burrow), and teaching them the means of survival (for instance, lions showing cubs how to hunt).

 

If a species has gone this route, it has to become territorial. It defends its territory to defend its breeding ground. The male keeps other males away to defend its breeding rights.

 

In a social species, the territory is owned by a clan rather than a breeding pair. A pecking order develops, strongest to weakest. The primates have extended this concept. Gangs form around a strong male. Maybe he's the strongest, maybe he's #2 or #3. But with his gang around him he can beat off the opposition and gain the top spot.

 

And that's our class system. Groups of people who aren't necessarily strong or clever, but held together by bonds of loyalty to one another, defending their rights and privileges against members of other groups. The system works. Without it society might well fall apart into anarchy.

 

And yet, I see changes happening. A loosening of the structure. Class mobility is somewhat easier. People are being judged (slightly) more on what they can do, rather than their dress, their accent, their parents. Parallel pecking orders develop. A is richer than B, but B plays guitar better. C is a con man, with an amazing ability to talk sensible people out of their money. D is a world-class athlete. E writes. F paints. And so on. It's a new setup, where most people can find something in themselves to be proud of, and something to admire and envy in others.

 

The class system is a hangover from our past, built into our genes before we even existed. It'll be a long time dying, but die it will, one day.

[coberst]

If evolution is a valid theory one would expect to find glimmerings of human characteristics, i.e. pecking order as origin of class consciousness, in ancestors of the human species

[Donk]

If evolution is a valid theory one would expect to find glimmerings of human characteristics, i.e. pecking order as origin of class consciousness, in ancestors of the human species

Unfortunately we can't study the ancestors of the human species. We can, however, study our cousins, the primates. They show exactly what I've described - territorial aggression, leadership by alpha male and alpha female, in-groups, cliques, social climbing, deference of lower to higher, haughtiness of higher to lower... in other words, class consciousness. QED